


Want

by AsagiStilinski



Series: Pridecember 2018 [16]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Daydreaming, Fantasizing, Future, M/M, Obsession, Obsessive Behavior, Plans For The Future, Resurrection, Yami Yuugi | Atem has his own body, ygopridecember2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-21 01:42:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17033996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsagiStilinski/pseuds/AsagiStilinski
Summary: Over the years, Seto Kaiba's idea of what his ideal future would be has changed, sometimes more drastically than others, but there seems to be one part of his daydreams that's fairly consistent, unfortunately, that one part is currently dead





	Want

**Author's Note:**

> Day 16 of Pridecember 2018- "Future"

The future is a fluid, unpredictable thing

It's always changing, in one form or another, the tiniest of differences can make the biggest of impacts

Wich is why Seto's vision for what he wants for his future is also always changing

When he was sixteen his ideal future was complete control

He imagined a world where he was the top duelist in the world, having defeated Yugi Muto long ago and where he was feared and respected by everyone who so much as heard his name

He got older, and he grew out of the person who had originally stolen Solomon Muto's Blue Eyes and ripped it to peices

He regretted that soon after, for alot of different reasons

When Atem crushed his mind and removed that dark entity from his soul, everything changed, and for a long time, he wasn't quite sure what he wanted his future to look like

When Battle City began he still imagined being the top duelist in the world, having defeated Yugi Muto and taken the crown

He imagined Kaiba Corp producing so much more than just duel-based games and technology, imagined VR systems and new, innovative games that he could only vaguely picture

He imagined being his best self, happy, and probably alone until he had children- children had always been part of his personal picture, he had always wanted to adopt his own

That didn't change, but other things did

After Battle City, and after building the North American Kaiba Land, he let go of the image of being the top duelist in the world

It wasn't that he no longer wanted it, it was just that he no longer _needed_ it, part of him, somewhere, somehow, had become ok with Yugi Muto- and his strange other self, that..... split personality of his, who insisted he was a pharaoh from Egypt, that Seto didn't really want to believe- being on top

He imagined his ideal future as having a Kaiba Land in every country on earth, a place for kids to go and play and forget their worries for a wile, he imagined hosting more dueling tournaments, maybe even once a year, he imagined having a small empire of not only games, but theme parks and tournaments and _experiences_ , hell he even started thinking about dabbling in other types of technology, though he hadn't really nailed down what kind yet

And he imagined dueling the "Pharaoh" again

He imagined dueling him but he never really fantasized much anymore about defeating him

The game was always sweeter than the victory, that was new for him, that was a sensation he had never experienced before, and he ached to experience it again

Yugi Muto and his freinds came back from their adventure to Egypt

And they were alone

And the Pharaoh- _Atem_ , he learned his name to be- was gone

From then on, his ideal future was relatively put aside, he stopped thinking about the long game, stopped fantasizing about how things would be in a year, or five years, or ten....

He was, in some ways, like he had been before Duelist's Kingdom

His goal was singular, and it was all-consuming, all he could think about, all he could hope for, all he could focus on

He couldn't think about anything else anymore, all he could do was obsess

He obsessed over the virtual reality hologram he had built, until it was done and he was unsatisfied

He obsessed over summoning the pharaoh back to the living world until he did and it didn't work and he was left alone again

He obsessed over going to the afterlife to see him again, until it happened and the duel was over and he was back again and he was just as frustrated as before

He obsessed

He obsessed

He obsessed

And as he obsessed, he allowed himself to drift

He allowed himself to imagine, here and there, in the recesses of his dreams and those quiet moments where his brain simply refused to focus any longer on the technology and the work and the puzzles....

He closed his eyes and he imagined, for breif, fleeting moments

He imagined having everything he wanted from Kaiba Corp, imagined yearly tournaments with sponsored duelists who would help turn dueling into the equivalent of an athletic sport

They would help him maintain a hold on the gaming world, pull in advertisers and sponsors, gain an audience and help him grow and learn as a duelist and as a game creator

He imagined Yugi Muto being one of them, or maybe as a game designer, he still wanted to do more in gaming than just Duel Monsters and VR after all

He imagined Atem being one of his duelists though, _the_ duelist, participating in every tournament of his, as the star of his company, the face of the dueling world

He imagined working with him every day, having him in his office, working with him in the lab

He imagined dueling him every day, sometimes he'd win, sometimes he'd lose, the outcome never truly mattered

He imagined taking him home every day, the pharaoh living in his house, being part of his world, never leaving for longer than a handfull of hours, maybe a day, before loyally returning to the Kaiba mansion again

He imagined teaching him about the modern world, imagined enjoying things with him, from new games to new experiences to new ice cream flavors

He imagined waking up with him in the mornings and going to bed with him at night

He imagined touching him

He imagined kisses pressed against his warm cheeks, and his neck, and his lips

He imagined his hands steadying against soft, slender hips

He imagined his face and his body and the way his breath would hitch when Seto touched him just- _right_ , imagined the expression on his face, the look in his eyes

He imagined sharing everything with him- a meal, a shower, a bed, a _future_

He imagined lazy Sunday mornings spent in bed- Atem's hair messy and unkempt and his body soft and pliant and weak

And warm summer days by the pool- with water dripping off of every inch of his sun-kissed skin and the way he would reach out and invite Seto to the water's edge

And cold December evenings- with snowflakes landing on his tongue and a smile on his face and the flush to his skin before going inside to warm by the fire

He imagined hearing him laugh, watching him cry, feeling his kisses

He imagined far away into the future, waking up and feeling the scrape of his wedding ring against his skin, hearing the sound of little feet pitter-pattering against the floor, staring up into bright red eyes, and a smiling face, and everything he had ever wanted, everything he could ever want, being right there in his grasp

It was dangerous to let himself imagine, because when he woke from those daydreams, he was reminded of how far out of reach they were, and it hurt

It pained him terribly

But it also pushed him further, harder, more desperately, to make it happen, to make it all a reality

He worked harder, he worked more diligently, he worked more desperately

Everytime he closed his eyes he envisioned that future, and whenever he opened them again, he was driven even further to keep going, to keep trying, until-

 

"Good morning, Atem,"

Slowly, his eyes blinked open, and a breath filled his lungs, and the pharaoh adjusted his vision, looking up into the soft blue eyes above him

"Is it morning?" he asked quietly, slowly sitting up and glancing around the lab

Technically, Seto supposed, it was late into the evening when he had finally brought Atem back from the afterlife, but semantics

"It's a figure of speech," he explained simply, refusing to expand on that any further as Atem shifted in the pod he had come back in

"So.... this is the future," he smirked teasingly

Apparently he thought that was funny

Seto could make all sorts of comments about how he didn't know there was time in the afterlife, or that Atem was an old relic from the past, but...

Instead, he merely leaned down, cupping his cheek and taking the pharaoh by surprise, leaning down to give him a slow kiss, closing his eyes as those images, those imaginings, flashed before his mind's eye once again

"Yes," he replied instead, keeping his lips only a breath away from the pharaoh's

"This is the future,"


End file.
